Quite Enjoying Towers of Midnight

[HighWiredSith]

So call me sacrilegious but after trudging, very literally trudging, through books 7-11, I find it hard to believe that Robert Jordan could have wrapped up this series in a single volume. The series had gotten so bogged down in politics and posturing, meeting after meeting, everything from the very minute details of Andoran politics to political posturing in the White Tower. Am I totally off base if feeling that Brandon Sanderson has done a great deal to swing this series back toward the action adventure type series it was in the earlier novels? I'm reading through ToM last night and Sanderson, for his faults, does a masterful job of building events and tension up in anticipation of a major battle or action set piece. I found it strange that the chapter that directly proceeds the most action intense scenes since Lord of Chaos is this long, meaningless chapter where Egwene, the Aes Sedai, the Windfinders, and the Aiel Wise Ones have this pow wow in Tel'Aran'Rhiod on who get to train who and how and when and who gets what. I'm sorry and I hate to say this, but that chapter, interject right in the middle of the building tension toward the battle of Tel'Aran'Rhiod felt so...well, so Robert Jordan. It seemed so similar to the seemingly endless chapters of Crossroads of Twilight or Winter's Heart - and was meaningless in the context of the last battle, the world changing and certainly should not have been put in the middle of the buildup to the battle.

 

So far, Towers of Midnight is by leaps and bounds the best book of the second half of the series imho and easily ranks in my top three or four. I've even found myself slowing up in my reading as I near the end, wanting to savor it, knowing I wont' get my hands on another Wheel of Time book for at least another year or more.

[Ingtar Shinowa]

I agree. BS was a breath of fresh air for me, and ToM is one of my three favorite WoT books. My only complaint is that the character development and much of the plot movement that occurred should have happened 4 books ago!

[Erunion]

So far, Towers of Midnight is by leaps and bounds the best book of the second half of the series imho and easily ranks in my top three or four. I've even found myself slowing up in my reading as I near the end, wanting to savor it, knowing I wont' get my hands on another Wheel of Time book for at least another year or more.

 

Pshaw. Just read it again! I know I did, a week after I first read TOM, I re-read it. The first read-through, as always, involved staying up ridiculously late (or rather, ridiculously early) and reading at a generally break-neck pace. The second read was slower and more careful, and involved much savouring and dissecting the plot minutiae.

 

Anyhow, read it again when you're done. It's worth it - Brandon's doing an excellent job finishing the series.

[rand4747]

RJ if he was still around probably would have had to split it, and likely he would have done it again making even more books.

[Suttree]

So far, Towers of Midnight is by leaps and bounds the best book of the second half of the series imho and easily ranks in my top three or four. I've even found myself slowing up in my reading as I near the end, wanting to savor it, knowing I wont' get my hands on another Wheel of Time book for at least another year or more.

 

Dunno about that, as time has passed I've come to enjoy tPoD and WH on rereads. In tPoD "A Time For Steel" and "Cup of Sleep" contain some of the best writing in the series.

 

I do agree BS has done a good job of hurrying things along, and their have been some exceptional chapters(Aviendhas trip through the columns comes to mind) but I worry those truly EPIC moments and passages I just want to read over and over may be a thing of the past. For instance I haven't felt the need to do a second read of ToM. It has been a great year for fantasy releases(White Luck Warrior was insane!), and with Dance With Dragons on the way I don't see myself doing so any time soon.

[OptimusPrime]

I think I am alone in saying I preferred TGS. ToM was alright, but it hasnt altered my list of favorites. I still rate LoC, TGS, WH, FoH and TGH as my top 5.

[NitroS]

I think I am alone in saying I preferred TGS. ToM was alright, but it hasnt altered my list of favorites. I still rate LoC, TGS, WH, FoH and TGH as my top 5.

lol ur the first person ive seen with the same top 3 as me, LOC was amazing for the whole rand captured, taim and the black tower and dumais wells, TGS white tower, and outing the black ajah was my favourite aes sedai moment in all the books.

[Zhipp]

Yeah, ToM was the most enjoyable book in the series for me. Maybe it's because I care more about what actually happens than how it's written, but I enjoy Branderson's writing style more than RJ's.

[OptimusPrime]

I think I am alone in saying I preferred TGS. ToM was alright, but it hasnt altered my list of favorites. I still rate LoC, TGS, WH, FoH and TGH as my top 5.

lol ur the first person ive seen with the same top 3 as me, LOC was amazing for the whole rand captured, taim and the black tower and dumais wells, TGS white tower, and outing the black ajah was my favourite aes sedai moment in all the books.

 

Hehehe. The White Tower scene was cool (although that had nothing to do with Egwene IMO) but for me TGS was about Rand.

 

Yay someone else likes TGS better than ToM!

[TheBeerPatriot]

I think I am alone in saying I preferred TGS. ToM was alright, but it hasnt altered my list of favorites. I still rate LoC, TGS, WH, FoH and TGH as my top 5.

lol ur the first person ive seen with the same top 3 as me, LOC was amazing for the whole rand captured, taim and the black tower and dumais wells, TGS white tower, and outing the black ajah was my favourite aes sedai moment in all the books.

 

Hehehe. The White Tower scene was cool (although that had nothing to do with Egwene IMO) but for me TGS was about Rand.

 

Yay someone else likes TGS better than ToM!

I too liked TGS more than TOM. I liked Towers certainly, especially the long-awaited Ghenjei sequence. However, Gathering Storm really packed a punch-A Place to Begin, The Last That Could Be Done, A Force of Light, A Visit with Verin Sedai,and Veins of Gold are among the best chapters of the series filled with taut gripping sequences. Although Perrin redeemed himself somewhat in Towers, I still find him somewhat annoying and too much of the book was devoted to him.

 

My top 5 are: TGH, TFOH, EOTW, TGS and TDR

[HighWiredSith]

No idea how much is Jordan, how much is Sanderson, but ToM has saved Perrin for me. By the end of KoD he had become one of the most shallow and useless characters in the main story arc and I rolled my eyes every time one of his chapters came up. I also often lamented to way the Whitecloaks were all but absent from the bulk of the series. They've finally returned, albeit seriously depleted and considerably changed. It's nice to have the male characters finally and unashamedly embracing their leadership roles in the greater story. It's also nice to have the Aes Sedai backbiting and bickering held to a minimum.

 

I feel like after several very literal years of this series dragging things have been punched into a high gear.

[HighWiredSith]

Finished Towers of Midnight last evening. I know some disagree but I am 100% certain that, at least for this reader, Brandon Sanderson has saved this series for me. Yes, I was intent on finishing simply because I had invested so much reading time but to be perfectly honest, by the end of the 10th book nearly all my sympathy and caring for ANY of the characters was all but gone. ToM has revived this stagnant series and brought it full circle back to what it promised to be in the first five or six books. I would be willing to put ToM at the top of my list, the best book of the series - a nearly perfect mixture of tight, well written action sequences intermingled by necessary political maneuvering.

 

Perrin has evolved from a static, annoying whining character to something more powerful then I could even imagine only a book ago. Matt has been the one character I've consistently enjoyed throughout the entire series but even Matt and his game of snakes and foxes in the Tower of Genji has grown and developed. Rand is finally the character hinted at in the first part of the series, self assured, confident, powerful. I even get the sense Egwene really has been written as power hungry and stubborn and destined to be plucked from her ivory tower or at least cut down to size.

 

Bravo Brandon Sanderson - excellent work and now I have to sit anxiously and wait for the final volume and here's a shock - I am looking forward to it.

 

Sithout.

[aclund3]

You're definitely not alone, Drekka Mort. Although I think you have to enjoy Egwene or severly dislike Perrin to like tGS over ToM.

[Morsker]

... I found it strange that the chapter that directly proceeds the most action intense scenes since Lord of Chaos is this long, meaningless chapter where Egwene, the Aes Sedai, the Windfinders, and the Aiel Wise Ones have this pow wow in Tel'Aran'Rhiod on who get to train who and how and when and who gets what. I'm sorry and I hate to say this, but that chapter, interject right in the middle of the building tension toward the battle of Tel'Aran'Rhiod felt so...well, so Robert Jordan. It seemed so similar to the seemingly endless chapters of Crossroads of Twilight or Winter's Heart - and was meaningless in the context of the last battle, the world changing and certainly should not have been put in the middle of the buildup to the battle.

While the scene wasn't action-packed, I think it's valuable because it suggests what will happen in the future, after the series ends. This makes the world feel more real, and not just a story that will end when we run out of books. We get to guess about which alliances will form to stand against the Seanchen, and what the result might be. So I don't think it's meaningless in the context of the last battle at all. It gives us a hint about what will survive and how the world will change.

 

I won't make excuses for every "filler" scene in the series, but I don't think they're harmful in themselves, only that there are too many. At least the T'A'R scene doesn't introduce any new characters!